Is their a reliable but cheap 300 bar compressor?

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Gixxer

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Mrs said if I'm good 🎅 may bring me a compressor.
Mate turned up to fill my bottle with one of those orange ones sold on Amazon few years ago for under 40£. Worked a treat today.got me wondering
But is their a reliable cheap compressor about now.
 
Never had one mates was water cooled but I could do either .No preference as such just most reliable I guess for myself
 
The key question is what do you want to use it for? Gun only and you have way more options than if you are wanting to fill a dive cylinder too.

Also size of cylinder will rule some out.
 
Bottle, I have 3 ltr 12 ltr bottles 300 bar.
Generally use 12 to top up the 3.
So generally dive onky.

Thanks again
 
The fact that the smallest bottle is 3L rules out the cheaper ones that are often air cooled and/or 12v or 240v. Vevor, for example.

If you're intent on filling the 12L, then your options are few, I'd say. The cheaper Yong Heng water cooled ones, I know some folks do fill 12L with them but in stages to keep the heat down.
I don't think even the Hill's for around £800-£900 is rated for 12L, I think it might be 7L but am ready to be corrected on that. There's a couple in excess of a grand I know of that will do it, Colitri is one, the other escapes me at the moment.

I've got a GX CS-4 and a carbon 3L that goes from about 190 to 260 in about twelve minutes and fill the guns at the same time, which only take a couple of minutes each, even for 480cc bottle guns. The 3L I use to top up at the range but I'm going to pick up a Weekender 1.1L as there will be many times that's all I'd need.
 
If you have a compressor, do you need the 12L bottle? I know the Ying Tongs (water cooled Yong Heng clones) will fill a 12L but it is an extra stress on the compressor. If you have a compressor you can fill your 3L anytime you like. I have a Hill and a 7L bottle, rarely fill it beyond 220 bar because I can refill at any time.

Based on what members have posted on here there is no 100% reliable compressor. The difference is the support when something goes wrong.

The lowest cost well supported option for bottle filling is the Hill. British made, superb support, backup and parts availability. Members have had Ying Tongs for many years without problems. My Ying Tong snapped it's main shaft within 6 months.

Yes, Ying Tongs are a lot cheaper, generally available for a 5th of the price of the Hill but there is no support so buy from amazon for a 2 year guarantee and they are more of a phaff to use due to needing an external source of water for colling.

Heat is the killer of compressors so keep it cool for longer life. What ever you buy I would recommend extra filtration, the Ying Tong requires more than the Hill in my opinion.

If my Hill suffered a catastrophic failure I would buy another immediately. Don't know what failure would be an uneconomical repair for a Hill. @HillPumps may be able to answer that.

If you have a cheap convenient source of bottle filling, do you need a compressor?
 
I've got the ying tong type ,and had it a few years now, I use it to top up a 3ltr which stays in my truck and a 7ltr which stays home, when my 7 gets to 200b I top it up to 280,,this takes two 10min bursts with a 10min interval to allow cooling,oil change every 2hrs of combined run time,its a gamble on them really but a 12ltr will put a lot of strain on it so be prepared to top up in short bursts over a longer period of time,, dependent on your budget ,if you can afford a high end hills then just top up the 3ltr for travel and fill the gun directly as you need it maybe,search threads as there are lots about compressors
 
My current set up only used for gun bottle fills, fills the 580cc impact bottle from empty in 4 minutes but generally only used for topping up from 150 bar to 240 bar and takes around 1 minute 20 seconds. Generally only reaches 43 degrees and highest was 48 when filling from empty. I've upgraded the water pipes which helped a lot with the running temp due to improved circulation of the cooling jacket. I have 2 tampon filters pre and post the larger molecular sieve filter and this has been faultless so far (only 4 months in) only the pre filter has needed changing to date.

PXL_20241118_094346588.webp
 
Krazcrab said:
only the pre filter has needed changing to date.
Click to expand...
How do you know when to change the sieve? I haven't worked out and method of measuring when to change. When first started into the filter wormhole I used self indicating silica gel after the sieve and with 3 hours of use they showed no sign of indicating so I decided to change sieve every three hours.

Nice tidy setup (y)
 
I have a small tampon 6mm wide each side of the sieve and figure if that's dry then the sieve is still good. Not very scientific I know but hey I'm always open to better ideas 🤣
 
Have no experience of any other compressor other than the hills ec3000, the hills so far has been faultless and i sold my 7ltr bottle and only have a 3 ltr carbon, yes it was expensive initially but what iv saved in convenience and time cant be measured as far as im concerned, so i would pay the extra for a known quality unit which if needed can be easily serviced or repaired.
 
I own a Tuxing and a Hills. When I had 1-2 guns, and shot once a week, the Tuxing did the job, but it was realistically only suitable for direct to gun (DTG) as anything bigger required multiple fill sessions with cooling time in between, especially from empty and it was annoyingly noisy. With the Hills, I fill a 2ltr bottle and even with three of us shooting for an afternoon, I haven’t had an issue. The only issue I have ever had with the Hills is getting over the initial purchase price, after that it’s been great. What it probably isn’t as great for is club use, its service intervals and costs mean that for big air users, it’s likely better to buy a Coltri.

I think if it this way, I didn’t buy a Hills, I purchased 2 hours a week of not listening to a hair dryer esque noise, that was worth every penny.
 
Krazcrab said:
My current set up only used for gun bottle fills, fills the 580cc impact bottle from empty in 4 minutes but generally only used for topping up from 150 bar to 240 bar and takes around 1 minute 20 seconds. Generally only reaches 43 degrees and highest was 48 when filling from empty. I've upgraded the water pipes which helped a lot with the running temp due to improved circulation of the cooling jacket. I have 2 tampon filters pre and post the larger molecular sieve filter and this has been faultless so far (only 4 months in) only the pre filter has needed changing to date.

View attachment 611039
Click to expand...
Same one as mine, i use a big kitchen swing bin about 20l with several 2 ltr pop bottles full of water frozen in the freezer in it to keep the water as cold as possible, topped up my 2 7ltr tanks no problem not getting above 50 deg C on warm summer days.
 
sagalout said:
How do you know when to change the sieve? I haven't worked out and method of measuring when to change. When first started into the filter wormhole I used self indicating silica gel after the sieve and with 3 hours of use they showed no sign of indicating so I decided to change sieve every three hours.

Nice tidy setup (y)
Click to expand...
Dont know if this might help,its for measuring damp on walls really so dont know if it might work on sieve.around £20 on amazon
 

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